HMN 2025: How Rural communities can leverage darkish sky tourism utilizing classes from pageant case study

Small rural communities seeking to construct tourism can attain for the celebs, with the assistance of University of Alberta analysis.

A case study of the Jasper Dark Sky Festival explored the teachings the Alberta mountain neighborhood has realized over the 14 years it has been internet hosting the favored vacationer occasion.

The findings, published in Journal of Rural and Community Development, provide insights into the challenges of planning and supporting such a venture, says study co-author Glen Hvenegaard, a professor of environmental science at Augustana Campus.

“That might assist different communities perceive the potential and keep away from the pitfalls,” he says.

Dark sky tourism—having fun with the pure great thing about the night time sky away from gentle air pollution—is a reasonably new however promising enterprise for rural areas desirous to increase their economies, says study co-author Clark Banack, director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities.

“They have much more entry to darkish skies than their big-city neighbors, and that is an essential asset.” It’s additionally changing into a extra widespread type of tourism, rising during the last decade in locations like Elk Island National Park and the southwest United States, he provides.

“That supplies alternatives for some rural communities.”

“It’s additionally a method to increase instructional choices round darkish skies and find out how to protect them,” provides Hvenegaard, noting a related study displaying that guests to the Jasper occasion “tremendously loved the pageant, realized so much, held optimistic attitudes towards darkish sky safety, however had minimal participation in such efforts.”

To discover what instance might be set for different communities, the researchers examined the historical past of Jasper’s fall pageant after which outlined key components behind its success, in addition to its challenges.

The case study tracked how the pageant developed over time, beginning small as a weekend occasion, to have fun the designation of Jasper National Park as a Dark-Sky Preserve. It was taken over by Tourism Jasper in 2013 as a possible approach to attract extra vacationers to the neighborhood through the gradual season between summer time and winter. The subsequent 12 months, it drew a lot bigger crowds by headlining Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in a 1,200-person tent.

The pageant ultimately grew to run 10 days, that includes different “rock star” visitors from the world of science, together with former Star Trek actor George Takei, TV educator Bill Nye and physicist Brian Cox.

But by 2018, regardless of its success, organizers had been beginning to query the pageant’s sustainability, confronted with a ballooning funds and excessive ticket costs. The COVID pandemic exacerbated the scenario, and the footprint was scaled again to smaller occasions, venues and ticket costs, together with free actions.

The evolution from modest beginnings to a giant star-studded pageant and again to a extra sustainable family-friendly occasion displays “how essential it’s to seek out center floor” to make sure final survival, Banack says.

“The pageant grew in a supercharged approach that put it on the radar, however organizers additionally rapidly acknowledged that it wasn’t a sustainable model, so that they did not attempt to maintain pushing in that course.

“It’s essential to comprehend each the alternatives and the constraints of the trail being taken and be prepared to vary course barely to be sustainable in the long term.”

The study revealed a number of components behind the pageant’s success that may provide steering for different communities, together with strategically advertising it to teams with associated pursuits like images and science, and providing a various mixture of instructional and “infotainment” actions for guests.

As nicely, attaining a darkish sky designation from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada was key to giving the occasion authenticity and publicity by media protection, Hvenegaard says.

Fostering neighborhood buy-in and having native champions to shepherd the pageant had been additionally essential components, the researchers discovered.

“Any profitable community-based venture has to have native trusted folks to advance it, who additionally perceive the dynamics of their neighborhood and may embody them in essential methods,” Banack notes.

On the flip facet, challenges to growing darkish sky tourism embody a reliance on co-operative climate, together with sufficient monetary sources and applicable services and infrastructure.

Differing priorities for an occasion, resembling emphasizing tourism versus darkish sky schooling, additionally must be balanced to keep away from potential battle, Hvenegaard notes.

“If members of an organizing committee have completely different targets for a pageant, they’re much less more likely to obtain any of them nicely. There must be a standard goal.”

Inviting and together with Indigenous participation in applicable methods might additionally improve darkish sky tourism, the research notes.

Though the researchers acknowledge Jasper has a definite benefit as a significant vacationer vacation spot with the infrastructure to assist a profitable occasion, they recommend that with conscious administration, darkish sky tourism is not out of attain for different rural communities.

“Each location has to play to its strengths and be genuine to what it has accessible,” says Hvenegaard, noting {that a} smaller venue just like the U of A’s Hesje Observatory realistically builds its customer programming round instructional alternatives, slightly than “making an attempt to fill resort rooms, there’s a possibility to create a buzz round what they provide, to create one thing distinctive to themselves.”